Google Ocean Archives - Mission Blue

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Explore Life Beneath the Waves

Covering more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, the ocean remains one of the most uncharted and undiscovered ecosystems on the planet. Home to the majority of life on Earth, the ocean acts as its life support system, controlling everything from our weather and rainfall to the oxygen we breathe. Yet despite the ocean’s vital importance, the ocean is changing at a rapid rate due to climate change, pollution, and overfishing, making it one of the most serious environmental issues we face today.

Google is committed to exploring and preserving the ocean. Today, in time for World Oceans Day on June 8, and in partnership with XL Catlin Seaview Survey, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and the Chagos Conservation Trust, you can explore brand new Street View imagery of more than 40 locations around the world, including the American Samoa and Chagos Islands and underwater dives in Bali, the Bahamas and the Great Barrier Reef.…

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BLUE Ocean Film Festival & Conservation Summit kicks off today!

Here at Mission Blue we love the BLUE Ocean Film Festival & Conservation Summit and we couldn’t be more excited to be on the ground at BLUE 2014 this week! The festivities kick off today in St. Petersburg, FL for seven days of ocean appreciation that will include film screenings, presentations by marine conservation and film industry all-stars, special exhibitions and the “Oscars of the ocean.”
Hosted at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront, BLUE draws a diverse crowd from film and TV celebrities to marine scientists and explorers to families and schoolchildren. “Ocean issues urgently need our attention and not just for the well being of future generations, but for the health of our own children,” said Debbie Kinder, Co-Founder and CEO of BLUE. …

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New Seafloor Map from Scripps uses Google Earth to Reveal Mysteries of the Deep

By Courtney Mattison
Sylvia Earle often says, “We know more about space than we do about our ocean.” That surprising fact may soon change thanks to a new map produced using satellite data of variations in Earth’s gravitational field to reveal features of the seafloor that were previously undiscovered. By tapping into data streams from the Jason-1 and CryoSat-2 satellites, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and their colleagues have made a breakthrough in seafloor mapping that “is like the difference between ordinary and high-definition television.”[i]

The data collected for the new seafloor map will inform the upcoming version of the global ocean seafloor in Google Earth and Maps and fill in large voids between shipboard depth profiles that have provided lower resolution seafloor mapping data in the past.…

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A Few Words from Google Earth founder John Hanke on Sylvia Earle

“I first met Sylvia in Spain when she publicly goaded me at a press conference for not giving the ocean fair treatment in Google Earth. From the moment I met her I was inspired by her conviction and energy. I have met very few people who can compare to Sylvia in terms of her velocity of work, travel, and speaking. She can move from an underwater dive to an international red-eye to a stage on the other side of the world in front of thousands of people without batting an eye. In fact she does this dozens of times per year. And she’s always perfectly composed and passionately articulate about saving the world’s oceans from environmental destruction. She’s remarkable and is truly one of my heroes.”…

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On Assignment in Antarctica with Google Ocean

By Mission Blue Young Explorer, Yoland Bosiger
There’s no traffic, no factories, no fast food dispenser and no bright flashy movie theaters to tantalize and entertain. Here under the starry sky there is nothing but stillness – a crisp, clear environment, both clean and uncontaminated. Yet if you strain your ears hard enough you might just hear it. Far off in the distance a glacier is giving rise to new life – a freshly carved iceberg begins its journey adrift.  

Photo (c) Duncan Young

Antarctica is like no other place on this planet. It’s here that the driest desert and the coldest temperatures combine to produce an inhospitable landscape, a windswept frontier of untamed wilderness. Yet compared with Antarctica’s relative desolation, the southern ocean teems with life.…

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Live Underwater Hangout at the Launch of Google’s Underwater Street View

By Mera McGrew
Today, millions around the world were able to dive into the ocean and explore the Great Barrier Reef  without even getting wet.
In a Google+ Hangout live from the launch of Google’s Underwater Street View, a packed room in Monterey California video chatted with James Cook University marine biologist Richard Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick, was underwater on a reef off the coast of Australia. He swam through the darkened reef in the middle of the night, stopping to show viewers a giant clam and the feeding mechanisms of a starfish. As a juvenile green sea turtle swam by, the audience watching live in Monterey gasped and applauded loudly. Fitzpatrick talked about green turtle nesting sites located near where he was diving before signing off.…

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